Imprint

Did you ever know anyone that you could recognize from a long ways off? Too far away to see their face, but you could tell who it was from the way that they walked?

You might not know this, but that kind of recognition is as true for runners as it is for walkers, maybe even more so.  I can think of two separate occasions when I saw someone running at a distance from myself and thought, "That looks like so-and-so." In each case it had been a number of years since I had seen that person, and in each case when they got closer I had correctly recognized them. There was something distinct about the way they moved when they ran that was imprinted on my memory.

And so it was when I went out to run the other day, except this time with a twist. As I left the house and ran the first three miles I felt as I was running not with my usual form, but in the manner of another person. I seemed to be holding my hips a bit differently, just like someone I had run with in the past. But who?

I thought about it as I ran for 25 or 30 minutes. This person? That one? That other one? Then suddenly it became clear. I was running like Rick. The picture is from August, 1989. Jim, myself, and Rick were running together in the second mile of a tough seven mile race. If memory serves me correctly Jim won and Rick was second. I know that on that day I was third.

Rick lived about 80 miles from where I did, and I got to know him through a mutual friend. For  5 or 6 years Rick would come and run in Rochester once a year, and I'd see him at 1-2 races in Minneapolis during that same time period. I don’t know how many miles we ran together in those years, but it was enough to imprint his particular form so strongly in my mind that today, more than 20 years since I've run with him, I can still recall it.

There is a different identity that I long to have imprinted, not in my memory, but onto my character. I want it to be there in such a way that anyone who knows me even a little would be able to recognize it. That is the character of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not the kind of thing that is as clearly recognizable as the way a person moves as they walk, or run, or talk, or use their hands in conversation. But it is the kind of thing that in some way sets a person apart as someone who has been changed because of the growing impact of Christ on their life.

Following Jesus changes the way a person sees, thinks about, and lives in the world. Bit by bit the impact of the values of the world decrease, and the effects of living under the lordship of Jesus increase. The imprint of the character of Jesus, on my inside, shows through with more and more clarity on the outside. The imprint of his character in me shines his light into the world, to his glory. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.